⚖ laurel lance | arrow

[prosecutorial]

	✔ Cʀᴏssᴏᴠᴇʀs/AU ✔ Aᴄᴛɪᴏɴsᴘᴀᴍ ✔ Pʀᴏsᴇ	✔ Pɪᴄᴛᴜʀᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴍᴘᴛs ✔ Oᴛʜᴇʀᴡᴏʀᴅʟʏ ✔ Sᴛᴀʀᴛᴇʀs	♥ F/M, F/F ⏰ Uᴘ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴀᴛᴇ, ᴏᴘᴇɴ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴏsᴛ-s4 AUs

Comments

[hacker]

Sometimes.

[ Her nod spoke of earnestness and support, but her choice of words remained vague enough to allow for the evasion of what had happened to Laurel, and it allowed for a lack of specifics where the truth of inhumans' origins were concerned.

Alien was a big pill to swallow. 'We brought you back as a robot' was going to be harder. ]

Laurel, I ... know that you want to see Oliver. Ideally, we would make that happen for you, but unfortunately, there are circumstances at play that make it impossible.

[prosecutorial]

[See that? That makes her go from confused to suspicious in a second, her eyes landing on Daisy and trying to read what she's trying to tell her before Daisy actually says it.]

Like what?

[hacker]

[ Daisy glanced back at Bobbi again, uncertain, but cleared her throat and returned her attention to Laurel, steeling herself for this. ]

We make it impossible. Oliver, Thea, Diggle, none of them can know that you're here because you're different now. They need to let you go. For their sake as much as yours.

[prosecutorial]

[The way the words land don't feel right, not the way they should. Part of her doesn't even remember that she's died, and all she can focus on is the fact that she's "different."]

Different how, exactly?

[You can't just keep me away from my family is her gut reaction, but she needs to know the why first.]

[hacker]

Laurel, you didn't make it.

[ At that moment, Daisy lifted the tablet in her hand and offered it out to Laurel. On it were the schematics of her new body, a life model decoy that, externally and to scanners, was distinguishable from human. Functionally, it would work the same, but the blueprints Skye offered her reflected the specifics of how Fitz had built it, including the roadbumps he'd run into and solved in trying to customize this particular model to retain her canary cry. ]

You died in the hospital, and two weeks ago, the Queen family buried you beside your sister.

[prosecutorial]

[She doesn't even really have the time to process it all beyond the fact that she was dead. Her father, Oliver, Sara, Thea, they were all going to believe that she was gone, and never coming back.

She could never see any of them again.

At the same time, however, she knows there has to be a reason they brought her back, a reason they did this, and that part of her wants to get to the bottom of things more than worrying about her family's reactions.

She looks down at the plans in her hand, scanning through them for a moment, before looking up at Daisy again in confusion.]

Why? Why me?

[hacker]

Because the occasion called for it. [ The answer was, perhaps painfully, simple. Daisy didn't dress it up with anything more than that, but she did move to sit down on the bed beside her, one hand moving to rest on her knee. ] There are still people in this world who need someone like you, Laurel. The things that you've done, the help that you can provide, the person that you are … You deserved better. You deserved more. And SHIELD found a way to give it to you.

I'm sorry. [ she pulled her hand back. ] I know this is a lot to process. We couldn't exactly ask your permission before we did it, but I pulled your medical records, and there was no DNR on file.

[prosecutorial]

[Well, yeah, but she never anticipated being resuscitated like this. She's quiet for a moment as she tries to process it all, so many questions falling away to answers she probably shouldn't have, but she wants them all the same.]

And I can never see them again? My father?

[hacker]

Laurel, I'm so sorry. I know how hard this must be for you. [ There's honesty there in her face, the honesty of an orphan who had her family just long enough to learn that she would never have one ever again, to get a taste of what it was like and lose it. That's the hardest loss to bear. ] But it's for their safety as much as yours. There's too much that we don't know still about how the chassis will function.

[prosecutorial]

[Chassis. It's hard not to feel self-conscious about it when she knows that Skye is referring to her body now. Her arms curl around herself and she tries to glance around the room to get her bearings more.]

He's ... I can't just leave him alone, thinking he lost another daughter.

[hacker]

Technically, he did. [ Strictly speaking, they weren't sure how much of Laurel would actually be Laurel. The technology was still in its nascent stages, testing. ]

[prosecutorial]

[Technically, yes. She knows the technicalities. But at the same time, she can't help but be angry at that because she's right here. How can she be dead if she's here, talking to Daisy.

She knows the answer. She knows that in a lot of ways she's just a computer program in a body who thinks she's Laurel Lance, but she's not ready to accept that yet.]

So how long are you going to keep me locked in here?